Braulio Arenas

Braulio Arenas (La Serena, April 4, 1913 - †Santiago May 12, 1988) was a Chilean poet and writer, founder of the surrealist Mandrágora group.

Braulio Arenas lived most of his youth in the north of Chile, moving in his teens to Talca to study. There he encountered Teófilo Cid and Enrique Gómez Correa among others, and participated to literary activities with them.

Years later, he started law studies in Santiago, which he soon abandoned to focus on writing. Through Eduardo Anguita, he met Vicente Huidobro, father of "Creationism" literary movement, which disputed literary innovations with Dada and Surrealism. Influenced by these European currents, Arenas founded with some friends, in 1938, the Surrealist group Mandrágora. This circle supported the Popular Front government. The same year, one of his short story, Gehenna, was published in Miguel Serrano's Antología del verdadero cuento en Chile.

Arenas received in 1984 the Chilean National Prize for Literature, winning some recognition albeit confidential editions of his works (often less than 800 exemplaries).

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